Resident Evil 6 DLC Impressions – Every New Mode Tested

Onslaught, Survivors and Predator are three new multiplayer modes which will be made available for 720 Microsoft Points or 320 individually.

But are they any good? You can wait until December 18th for that answer. Or you can get an answer now! Well, below. You have to read some words first. Sorry.

Onslaught – Dr. Mario Meets Mercenaries

“It’s a bit like Dr. Mario!” said Capcom. We snorted. Dr Mario indeed! What fools. This will be nothing like Dr. Mario.

And then, it turned out Onslaught is basically a Dr. Mario twist on Mercenaries. Oh. Whoops.

It looks like Mercenaries but there are two significant twists. The first is that your arsenal has been stripped down to the absolute bare essentials. Sherry starts with 30 rounds, a flash grenade and a stun rod. Agent has a knife and seven Magnum rounds. Other characters have similarly light loadouts.

Unlike Mercenaries where your pockets bulge under the weight of your collective arsenal, ammo here has to be found and snatched up in the rare quiet moments. Ammo is surprisingly hard to find too, adding to the feeling of desperation as you fight off the undead.

The other twist is more significant. Rather than comboing enemies to rack up a high score, you’re comboing enemies so you can send them send your opponent’s way. See! Like Dr. Mario! Or rather, Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine where combos send ‘dud’ beans at your opponent.

Maybe weird puzzle game references aren’t working out too well but you get the point. The better you do, the harder it is for your opponent to operate.

Your opponent is playing at the same time (although not in the same arena as you) to do the same and send zombies your way although the flipside to this is the more zombies onscreen means more chance to combo them and send them back. The short version: as the match develops, the tug-of-war between both players becomes tougher.

The concept makes sense immediately although the user interface is a little tricky to understand right from the off, bombarding you with numbers, percentages, zombie silhouettes amongst the usual Mercenaries clutter adorning the screen.

So, Dr. Mario with zombies then. Good stuff.

Survivors – Join The Undead

Survivors is a basic free-for-all between six players but when you die, you come back as an enemy. Getting a kill when converted to the infected side sees you come back as the ‘human’ player you started the match with.

As a human player, you have the same stripped-back arsenal you do in Onslaught but human vs. human combat is strangely flat.

It’s usually whoever gets the first knockdown then goes on to get the kill unless something unexpected happens, like another player wading into the ruckus. As there are no other zombies in this mode and the maps are fairly large, this doesn’t happen as often as you might expect given the general commotion and noise involved when knocking a player over until they die.

But it’s when you die that things become a lot more fun (a first for any multiplayer shooter, probably).

The infected enemy you come back as depends on the map you’re playing on. On Urban Chaos, you come back as a zombie wielding an object like a pipe or a cleaver. On Liquid Fire, it’s the weird creatures populating Resident Evil 6’s later stages and Ada’s campaign.

Each enemy has its own moveset – standard infecteds can grab, crawl, throw objects or vomit while others have stronger melee moves and faster moving speed.

Compared to the shotgun wielding, melee-attacking, grenade-throwing characters like Chris and Leon, most infecteds don’t stand a chance against them in direct confrontation, so you have to be creative and work with other players who have converted to the enemy side.

Cornering human players works well, as does ambushing them, as you can use your numbers to overwhelm them. Sneaking up on human players while they’re busy shooting at other infected players is definitely the best tactic and much of the match is spent weighing up the right time to attack, slowly moving around the edges of the map.

It quickly becomes carnage. What often happens is enemy players get close, the human player panics and does something stupid like throwing a grenade about two feet in front of him and chaos ensues.

The mode ends when time has elapsed or all human players have become converted to the enemy side. The scoring system is hard to work out, although it’s mostly survive the longest as a human player and you’ll win.

A decent mode then, if only because playing as Resident Evil 6’s ugly creatures and figuring out how to take on its cast of heroes is an interesting concept. It’s messy in a good way but it’s a shame that human vs. human fights aren’t nearly as captivating.

Predator – Play As Ustanak

This is the best mode of them all. By far.

It’s also the most gimmicky. There are six rounds of two minutes each. In each round, a different player takes control of Ustanak, the monstrous creature from Resident Evil 6’s campaign that chases Jake and Sherry, and the aim is to end the mode with the highest score.

For a creature that’s eight foot tall and made entirely of burgers, Ustanak is surprisingly nimble. He’s able to hop over cover and climb up boxes and shipping containers and runs slightly faster than normal players do. Given his speed and Resident Evil 6’s cramped maps, the best way to evade Ustanak is to twist and turn around the environment, something he can’t do as easily given his size.

Ustanak also has a wide array of moves available – a shoulder tackle, two melee swipes, a big boot and a grab attack.

When you grab someone you can either throw them at the other players or hold onto them for as long as possible, keeping them out of the match if they stay in Ustanak’s grasp. The human team can shoot the player free though and Ustanak loses some of his moves while he has a player grabbed, so there is a trade-off to consider.

Players earn the bulk of their points while playing as Ustanak, as it’s fairly easy to down players (although you can’t kill them) but those up against him can also boost their score by injuring the creature. Helping out in the one-sided fight are weapons dropped into the arena such as rocket launchers and magnums, although Ustanak can also grab some of the attachments he uses in the game, such as the massive shotgun he clicks into his arm.

That’s the GameFAQs-style technical breakdown. In terms of how it plays, it’s a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

Playing as Ustanak is the highlight but even playing as one of the five trying to injure him is surprisingly compelling, most because – again – there’s a lack of ammo that leaves you feeling vulnerable as you’re forced to search for extra rounds while Ustanak is running rampant.

Resident Evil 6 did a good job of communicating Ustanak’s power in the main game and that’s something that carries over to multiplayer. He’s an absolute monster. Running through gunfire to chase and grab players is strangely empowering and the occasional clumsiness of the controls even fits the towering, awkward creature in a way it simply can’t with the likes of Leon and Chris.

Predator is easily the highlight of the package and worth revisiting Resident Evil 6 for. Survivors and Onslaught are cute multiplayer riffs on the main game but Predator feels like something distinctly unique to Resident Evil 6.